


Straight to the bones

by librarius



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Incidents, Loss, Love, OC, OFC - Freeform, Star Trek: AOS, scientists - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:23:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9469250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarius/pseuds/librarius
Summary: Love is a bitch, found as unexpectedly as it gets lost.Set somewhen in their second year of the five year mission, between “Into Darkness” and “Beyond”.





	1. I

**Chapter I**

Getting lost whilst looking for plants of medical use was one thing, skidding down an abrupt scarp that had been completely invisible was something else. It was worse.  
The surprise of falling so suddenly had caught his breath and so the doctor hadn’t even screamed when gravity took possession of his body. The way down saw a lot of scratches and hits and in almost no time he had crashed to the ground of a sink.  
Trying to get up, a sharp pain emerged and forced him down again. He gritted his teeth in a moment of agony: He had a broken shin.  
And as if that hadn’t been enough, two things added to his bad luck:  
One, his communicator didn’t work in the sink. It didn’t seem broken, so it must be the geological features that let the signal not cross the sink’s rim. So help wasn’t very likely.  
Two, the ground was sloppy – and suddenly sinking, he realized with a tinge of fear. Not even two years of their five year mission had passed, and he had managed to land in a swamp and every move just added to the trap that was. Bravo. He had gotten onto his feet again, most of his weight standing on the intact leg, but he could not walk out of the muddy swamp that easily. The ground was sticky and unstable. He tried to walk, though, and also called for the rest of the team. Maybe his voice could reach the top of the sink.

Suddenly, a humanoid woman appeared from the side – she must have heard him.  
“Please”, he said. “Help me out of here.”  
Her eyes fixated him for a moment, and then her gaze wandered across the swamp’s surface. “Do not move”, she said with an accent he couldn’t relate. “And do not make any more noise. It attracts the predators.”  
She got closer cautiously, taking her steps very carefully and looking every direction. “Where is the rest of your group?”  
“Outside this sink.” He tried to calm down. “Please, help me out of here.”  
“You are hurt.”  
In her manners she reminded him of Spock. He almost rolled his eyes. “I know. I skidded down that scarp and broke a leg. That’s why I can’t get out myself.” He sunk in a bit deeper, the swamp now swallowing him up to the waist.  
Her eyes fixated a spot behind him. “It might link our lives”, she said.  
McCoy stared at her confused. “What?”  
“I am responsible for the life I save.” She still fixated the spot he couldn’t see. Then she closed her red-pupilled golden eyes for just a heartbeat. When she opened them again, she took a quick step to him, finding a steady position for her feet and reaching down for his hands. “Give me your hands, both, and when I say so, push yourself to me as much as you can… Push!”  
With a smacking noise the swamp let go of his loot. In a kind of judo motion, she threw him onto the ground a few meters from the mud and stood, facing the puddle. Something had moved there just the moment he had been pulled out. McCoy couldn’t see it from where he had fallen to the ground, because the woman’s figure masked the view. A harsh noise like from a rattlesnake resounded, and suddenly she unfolded wings reaching from her ankles up to over her head. They shook aggressively in time with the rattle and a deep growling hiss.  
The thing hearable backed off with a screech that set the doctor’s teeth on edge. So there really had been a predator in the swamp. Then suddenly, everything was as silent as before. The woman turned to him, wings gone.  
“Thank you”, McCoy said and introduced himself.  
“Ieva”, she replied. “Evolutionary scientist. Show me your leg. Can you stand?”  
Trying to, he grimaced pained. She squinted her eyes, took a closer look, then built a makeshift splint from a nearby tree’s branch and a rope she had with her. “Let us get back to your group”, she said, backing him on the way up to the sink’s rim. She chose a less steep route where the sink’s rim almost formed a natural path upwards.  
He looked at her from the side. She was smaller than him, but quite exercised, and her wings had vanished completely in her multilayered clothes. He felt surprisingly strong himself, regarding the broken shin and the other marks of his skid.  
“What did you mean: You’re responsible for the life you save?”  
“It means that our lives are linked now that I saved yours, and everything you do is somehow connected to me, and vice versa.”  
He promised to do no harm anyway, but whilst saying so, she suddenly pulled him back. “You almost did right now, and maybe you already have”, she said, pointing to a small group of nondescript flowers. “Those are the first of their kind on this planet and my subject of research. It is evolution at its most fragile stage, so try not to kill it.”  
He stared at the flowers and tried to remember if he had stepped on some of them before. He couldn’t even recall seeing them for he had been looking for others. “Oh.”  
“They are the reason I am here”, she said. “It is a very rare mutation. I hope your group has not done too much harm here.”  
“We will leave anyway, so they should be safe for you to examine”, he replied a little shiftless.  
She stopped and looked at him seriously. “So you have not recognized it yet?”  
“What?”  
She lifted her left hand, then took a blade from her robe and cut a finger with it, drawing blood. And suddenly he realized it: He felt the cut on his own finger, too! He didn’t bleed, though, but the pain was there like an echo.  
“What kind of link is that?” he asked in shock.  
“As I said: I am responsible for the life I save – because we are linked now. We will not be separated too far. For how long I do not know, but I can promise you that if you leave, I will, too – and thus, leave the Krol mutation behind as well.”  
Silent, they stood there for a moment, thinking. McCoy had to process something inapprehensible.  
“And if I get to save your life in return?” he then asked.  
She shook her head. “That would not change a thing. It is not how it works. And if you were of my kind, it would only deepen the bond into mutual responsibility.”

When they reached the sink’s rim, he could finally contact the team and also Scotty. He would be beamed from where he was standing, to avoid further stress on his shin. Turning to her who helped him, he said: “Thank you, Ieva. Let’s try if technology can end this bond.”  
She blinked oddly, and smiled. “Good luck, doctor McCoy”, she said. Then he vanished.

The moment he arrived back at the Enterprise, phasers were aimed at – well, not him but quite his direction. Just a meter away, the woman had arrived on board as well. She lifted her arms, showing her palms in a universally known sign of being unarmed.  
A very surprised Scotty wanted to know where the hell she came from until he realized that for whatever reason her signature was inseparable from McCoy’s. Beaming her back to the surface did the same to McCoy and vice versa.  
The captain ordered both to the medical bay – McCoy’s leg needed to be fixed properly and until they knew what was going on he didn’t want them to potentially endanger the crew. Four security officers and Kirk himself came along.


	2. II

**Chapter II**

 

The interrogation didn’t come up with any useful information. They tested the “bond” by simple pinpricks and saw it really was there – whatever was done to one, had an echo in the sensations of the other. The echo was not as strong as the real thing, mostly about half as strong the sensation, but it was not to dismiss that it was there.  
Ieva introduced herself to the captain as complete as possible to clear out any thoughts of danger coming from her. In the end, Kirk seemed to be unhappy but he accepted the situation – temporarily. McCoy convinced him that it was quite an opportunity to learn more about a species yet unknown to them. He even managed that she would not be held in a cell, although of course, there was security wherever she went, and they were both in quarantine until further notice.

In the following days, McCoy learned more about Ieva’s species and herself, such as her kind having only one name that they chose themselves when they were old enough. The concept of name-giving by parents to an individual that was not yet grown up didn’t seem to make sense to her.  
Also, her species knew about other life forms, but referred to their own as “us”. They had no name for their own species. Out of quandary he named them angelikós – angel-like.  
Regarding her work on the planet she said: “I am a scientist on evolution, watching the Krol flowers start off into something else. Well, I was. I will tell my supervisor to send somebody else, since I am here now.”  
McCoy was deeply sorry to have taken her freedom, for she had called it exactly this, once: Losing her freedom. Nevertheless, she didn’t seem angry about it, but accepted it as an inevitable fact.  
The captain wanted to know all about her as well and since McCoy demanded to be present at every inquiry, there were quite some questions being asked more than once – and answered patiently again and again. Ieva didn’t know how to break the link their lives had gotten into, but in everything else she showed a highly developed intellect and nothing but cooperation.  
“Humans are so fragile”, she mused, watching Kirk pass the med bay after their latest round of question and answer. Then she turned to McCoy: “I saw that when you broke your leg, but it is even more than I thought then.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Scan me”, she just said. He hadn’t done this by now, although he was curious about her physical condition.  
The scan held a surprise incoming for the doctor: Ieva didn’t look like it, but the scan showed an amazing physical strength. In fact, it reminded him of certain augmented men from the not long enough gone past. There were some even more interesting differences to the human physics though, such as her wings, which had the form of tails dangling from her shoulder blades but were mirrored inside her body as well: Two strings of muscle, cartilage and bone stabilized her spine and were the source of her wings. When he asked her to unfold them, he witnessed the complex anatomical mechanism behind. The ‘tails’ erected upwards and then the skin of the wings practically fell down, supported by the smallest bones. The unfolding looked as if an ancient sailing-ship hoisted its sails. The stabilizing bones and the skin gave them a look like those of bats, but almost transparent. The doctor just couldn’t stop gaping at the sight. The wings were longer than they were wide and she couldn’t fly with them, “flit at the most”, she told him. The wingspan was less than her arms’.  
Whilst he was busy with the devices, she was writing onto a kind of archaic book all the time. It had just four pages, so he wondered what there was about it: “What are you doing?”  
“I report.” She showed him a page full of strange signs and quite accurate sketches. The signs looked like a déjà vu to him.  
“May I – take a look?” He wondered if he would be able to read them. They felt familiar.  
“We are linked, so some of my abilities are yours now, too. It’s not about strength and pain only. If you try, I am certain you will most certainly be able to read it.” With that, she handed him the thing and watched him looking at the pages, patiently waiting for the still ongoing scan to complete.

[Ieva’s report journal, written in a very clear and small style]  
_Krol flowers at early stage of mutation, first sign of new subspecies._  
Fauna not yet adapted.  
Stage 1 will need approx. 50.3 to 66.9 until complete.  
[Here some detailed sketches of the blue flowers were drawn. They looked just like photographs.]  
\--  
_Ieva 200-1-28b2 _ D. 885.44.6_  
Saved creature from a predator. Species of saved: Human (name Leonard McCoy, doctor), species of predator: Orrla (no individual). Orrla fled. Action caused lifelink.  
Lifelink causes my leave.  
Leaving Varyc Nuuf at this early stage of Krol mutation is unfortunate but inevitable.  
Q >Send one of my pupils class 77 to Varyc Nuuf for further research.  
I will change my subject to the latest stage of human evolution meanwhile. Last sighting approx. -Y 700.  
Begin new file.  
\--  
Ieva 200-4-18x3 _ D.1.1.1  
Subject: Human evolution and habits; habitat: spaceship (name: U.S.S. Enterprise)  
After an incident on Varyc Nuuf (D. 885.44.6 – see file Ieva 200-1-28b2) I am with a spaceship crew of mostly humans and life-linked to one of them, a doctor (name Leonard McCoy). I am being questioned on Varyc Nuuf, myself, my plans, my species, what a lifelink is and how it can be broken. They do not seem happy it cannot.  
Lifelink details: Physical conn. (wounds’ pain, approx. 56 per cent), knowledge abilities (to be analyzed). Knowledge abilities on human physics have transferred. McCoy might develop similar abilities. I will need to be careful physically: Human beings are fragile; I can feel his weakness in my bones.  
They have a comprehensive mind, but are very suppressed.  
At least one Vulcan on board (seen through arrival, second to the captain (name: Kirk), name: Spock), diverse other species.  
[Here more sketches were drawn, one showing himself. A table full of formulas and numbers was there, too, but he didn’t see what it was about.]  
\--  
_At -Y 700 humans were not able to travel in space, now they send scientific teams into the open just like we do. Thoughts on martialness yet to be discovered. I am curious, like about the further specifications of the link created._  
[End of her journal]

McCoy handed it back to her, thinking.  
“Does this give answer to some of your questions?” she asked. Her wings were folded (or more likely, _rolled_ ) and hidden in her clothes again.  
He shook his head. “It brings up even more”, he said. “How do you transmit your report to your supervisor?”  
“The journal does.” She laid it flat on one hand, the other on top, then with her thumbs and little fingers she pressed two buttons on each side. The whole thing gave a soft hum, then everything written down vanished, and the pages were empty again.  
“How does that work?”  
“It is a galaxy crossing signal transmitted to its receiver, but since I am a biologist, not an engineer, I do not know about how it actually _works_.”  
He nodded absent-minded. There was another question that had become clear in his mind during their conversation: “Can you read my mind?”  
“No. Our connection is physical only. Shared abilities are a part of it, also, because they are based in the physics. It is your intellect that uses them.”  
“Like being able to read your language.”  
Ieva blinked in the odd way he by now knew to be her equivalent of nodding. “Could you speak or write it?”  
He thought about it, then shook his head. She blinked that way again. That was what she had meant.  
“So your understanding of the human anatomy…” She had shown quite some in the past days.  
“It is based on your perceptive abilities. You have a talent for it that I now share, and I am learning fast, but I do not share your knowledge, because that is yours only.”  
McCoy accepted that as well, but there was something else he needed to know for until now they had been together all the time: “How far can we be parted due to that lifelink mystery?” The only time, in fact, that they hadn't been in the same room was at night – and she had been given quarters close to his as soon as quarantine was lifted.  
“It is not a mystery to me, and it will not be to you as soon as you comprehend. It is the same environment that is required, nothing more. So the same planet, the same spaceship is all. We do not need to sit on each other’s lap, if that is your worries.”  
McCoy grinned on the picture for a moment but kept silent for a while. “You’re unhappy with the situation.”  
“I am. But I will adapt to it.”  
“Then why did you save me? You knew this could happen.”  
She looked at him openly. “You asked me to. And it was the right thing to do. I could not have let a conscious being die, even if it means to possibly lose my freedom. It is not a question at all.”  
McCoy felt sorry for the situation he had put her in unknowingly. “I will try to find a way.”  
She blinked. He was certain she didn’t think he would find a way but he would try to nevertheless.  
After another moment of silence, she said: “It was my decision.”  
Just then Kirk was back, and also Spock was. They escorted her to her quarters. It all had been settled whilst McCoy had been checking her for potential dangers. Now all that was left was a) what to do with her next, and b) how to break the lifelink. 

In a private moment with Kirk, McCoy had suggested to keep her to the medical team. Due to their link, she had inherited an insight on human medical conditions which might come in handy. In fact, it already had when a child needed to be calmed and Ieva had talked to, and even made friends with the boy. It hadn’t only been his abrasion that caused him pain, but also a pulled muscle in his chest that the woman had seen straight away.  
The suggestion had tempted Jim to make fun of the whole situation by thinking aloud that by having this link created, Bones might have found himself a new wife in some archaic kind of wedding tradition. Neither the doctor nor Spock, who had just joined them, thought it as laughable as the captain did.  
Before Bones could leave, Jim said: “But you have to admit she's hot.” He grinned meaningful.  
Bones stared at him blankly.  
“Okay, okay”, Jim grinned, “She's all yours, _doctor_. After all, it's you who picked her up.”

On his way back, McCoy secretly mused about Ieva maybe not even understanding the concept of marriage at all. At least, it would not have been a surprise to him. Maybe, on occasion, he would ask her about the angelikós’ culture, including such things as relationships.


	3. III

**Chapter III**

 

As his assistant due to her lack of medical training, Ieva worked with the doctor around at all times. He was fascinated by how fast she learned and her ability to see the slightest aberrances. He wondered if he might get her interested in proper medical training for she would certainly make a good doctor. 

One night, in an uneventful shift, McCoy asked her to show him how she had gotten rid of the predator back on Varyc Nuuf.  
“You will not enjoy it”, she warned, but he was really curious to actually see it. She had shown him in her book what Orrlas looked like and ever since he had been wondering what could make such a thing back off.  
Finally, she let him have it. Making sure there was enough room around them and nothing to accidentally get hurt by, she stood in front of him, just about two meters away.  
Suddenly, she uttered a hissing noise that made his feet tickle. The red of her pupils took her eyeballs completely, giving her eyes a demonic glow, and with a rattling sound she unfolded her wings. The sounds and the sight of those wings, now wearing colors and patterns the brain couldn't process, they combined created a creatural _angst_ within “everything with a survival instinct”, as she later put it.  
The doctor felt it himself. He had never before experienced angst like that: His mind didn’t think, he turned into pure instinct; an instinct that painfully _cried_ for him to flee and save his bare life--  
She stopped it before his heart rate could cause any damage, because he had gotten with his back against the wall.  
He needed some moments to readjust and get back to his right mind. His eyes were still wide with a hint of shock when he realized what it had been like: “You’ve turned me into a … into pure _angst_ ”, he said.  
She came over, taking his right hand into hers, rubbing his wrist with little circles. The reassuring gesture and her eyes being back at their usually golden color helped him calm. Finally, he stopped shaking – which he hadn’t even realized he still had been.  
“You could make someone’s heart stop that way.”  
“That is why it is defense only.” She guided him to sit down. “Relax now”, she said, not letting go of his wrist before he was seated. He dropped as if he had been running for his life.

After that night she let him examine her wings down to the roots by touch as well.  
“Our wings are the most vulnerable part of our body. They are born from the spine itself and connected closely to our nervous system”, she explained.  
When she said that he’d be the only non-angelikós she would trust to not cause any damage there – because she’s seen he’s got talented hands – he didn’t know what to say. It felt very intimate and she explained to him it really was. The few heartbeats of awkward silence saw him taken by surprise, then he just lowered his eyes in a feeling of embarrassment and said “Thank you”.  
What the scan had not shown because it was just not meant to, he could feel with his fingertips on the very root of her wings on her lower back: The strains of muscle were practically interwoven, entangled with the spine in a delicate pattern. When she stretched her back a bit, he felt the muscles work in the strangest way.

As she was sharing her notes with him, so did he share his notes with her. The good thing about this was, of course, that the described species could always explain, correct, or give just more information than there were before.  
Ieva found it interesting to read his notes on herself, although they were usually little more than headwords:  
_Angelikós: humanoid, but with red-pupiled, golden eyes and a vertical nictitating membrane; physiognomy similar to human (except for the wings); great physical strength; amazing eyesight; thinks logical like a Vulcan; wings almost see-through; highly intelligent._  
Everything else was in the medical readings, pictures, and protocols.  
It was strange for him to read scientific findings on himself – especially those beyond pure data collection such as skeletal structure et cetera. It was, in a way, quite private. On the other hand, it was no more than he did to her, so it was a scientific vice versa of its own kind.  
Her knowledge on humankind was based on incomplete data due to the age of her sources: When she showed him the _Vitruvian Man_ on her book asking if it was still correct, he was beyond surprised.  
“It’s interesting what a strange collection of human knowledge you have access to. But yes, it still is. Although it’s a very idealized picture.”  
She grinned and later showed him the collection on human knowledge index. It involved miscellaneous writings and plates throughout the centuries, but also – and foremost – works of art, literature, and music.  
“Anything that ever found its way to us, stranded, mostly, one can say. Whatever it was, got its tag as ‘human’ and until now, it has not gotten any precise system.” She smiled softly. “Enough to learn your language and get a glimpse into culture and history, but not enough to understand. Live contact teaches so much more than these stranded goods could ever bring. Because they explain nothing.”  
He offered her to answer whatever question she might have, and so their conversations became long and multi-topic.  
“It is fascinating to see how much your species has achieved since the time we had last taken a look at you”, she stated. “But there is one big thing I need to know: Do you still wage war out of religious reasons?” He had learned by now that Ieva had no comprehension regarding destructive behavior of any kind, so war was something she despised from the very heart of her existence.  
He told her that there were no more wars out of religious reasons, and explained to her the idea and philosophy of the Federation of Planets, and the purpose of the Enterprise. That seemed to quite resonate with her. Basically, Ieva’s species was a race of scientifically interested collectors.  
When asked how it came that she knew English, the answer was exactly what her species was like: She had learned about 15 forms of communication just because she was curious. “The way you talk shows the way you think”, she said, “and the way a species thinks is what is essential to them.”  
“But why English?”  
“It Is fascinating, and seductive to learn. It Is full of pictures and poetry – and twists.” He learned that she loved the works of Shakespeare and some 20th century authors, “because they show so much of the human behavior and the things that influence you.”  
Of course, he also wanted to hear about _her_ world and he was surprised to hear that it was a moon, not a planet!  
“Yes, it really is”, she affirmed. “My home is on one out of six moons orbiting a not inhabitable planet. Two more of the moons are also inhabited by us, the others cannot be.”  
“So, you've known space travel all your life?” McCoy wondered, picturing angelikós living on one moon, and going to school and university on another. _Unbelievable._  
“Well, not that much, no. The two moon outposts are scientific facilities. Space travel... Well, I do not like space travels. Space is not meant for breathing creatures. But I do like the sights it provides. I like the view and all the different worlds there are.”  
McCoy could relate to that. He didn't like space travel either.  
“I think that is something quite common for us”, she continued. “Those of us who start a scientific career – we never stop travelling. Only few ever return home.”  
“Don't you miss it?”  
She smiled kindly. “I miss a planetary ground and air, but home, to me, is everywhere that has something to explore.”

When an accident in the armory left seven people severely injured, McCoy learned how very helpful Ieva had become. Her every action was fast and exact, and her suggestions were right each and every time. He couldn't give her access to more than basic data because she wasn't part of the Federation, although he felt it would be the right decision to, but she didn't mind at all. “I am happy to be of support – and you would not have access to all of our knowledge either”, she just said. “I am perfectly okay with that.”  
After working ten hours straight with the injured of the malfunction, the doctor asked her to call him by his first name. Calling her “Ieva” all the time had given him an uneasy feeling being answered by his last name anyway. Of course, she had no other name than that, but knowing this didn't change a thing. Plus, her permission to closer examine her wings was intimate in a way that practically demanded him giving her this.

After all patients were taken care of, they both were still too amped to find sleep, so they just relaxed over a lose discussion on cultural differences, when Ieva took on the topic of reproduction: “Is it true that humans tend to choose their sexual partners based on their looks?”  
“Some might, but their character is also important, at least if the relationship is meant to last.”  
“So mating is for different purposes.”  
“In a way, yes.”  
She thought about it.  
There was the Leonard’s chance to ask: “What about your kind?”  
“Even for fun reasons, which I assume are those about the looks, we could never hook up with someone whose characteristics do not fit ours.” She paused, thinking of an example. “I hear, the captain is considered good-looking?”  
“Quite so. Not to you?”  
“I see the features that might, but I really can’t cope with the rest.”  
He struggled to suppress a grin and managed to just give her a questioning look.  
“The aggressiveness. And also he seems overconfident to me. We cannot take such.”  
He decided to defend his friend: “I’d say we’re more than the obvious, even the captain.”  
“So are we.” She grinned. “But an impression still has an impact. Especially when it is about a fun-short.”  
“I see. So what’s important for you?” Had he really asked that? He felt a little uneasy about his own courage.  
Ieva, looking at him straight and open as always, smiled: “An open, interested mind. Intelligence and that what you call humaneness. Although I cannot remember any not good-looking of my kind, there are not many whom I would consider even for a day.”  
“So you’re not in a relationship.”  
“Well, no. We also do not meet others very often. By chance, sometimes, or at special occasions, like when a galaxy is born.”  
“Or on your home moon.”  
“I have not been there since I am grown up. I am too curious for things unknown to get back there.”  
“But if you meet so rarely, how does your species survive?”  
“Well, on the one hand, we just are rare. We have always been and it is not considered a problem. And on the other, we are compatible with many other species, and our DNA, especially the female part of it, usually is dominant.”  
His gaze got confused. “What do you mean, dominant?”  
“I could mate with any compatible species including human, and the offspring would most likely still be of my kind. With a few inherited features like hair and nails, tails, rarely the eyes, contributed by the mate. Those are usually gone within one generation as well.”  
That revelation left him speakless. “Wow”, he said.  
She shrugged. “It makes getting extinct a wee bit harder. And we are not limited to the little amount of possible mates within our own species, which is a good thing regarding our picky choice of mates.”  
_Compatible species, including human_ , Leonard thought and suddenly felt even more uneasy about the whole conversation.


	4. IV

**Chapter IV**

 

Uhura and Ieva had spent some time together almost from the beginning, discussing linguistics and how she got to learn English from historical files that one way or the other found their way into angelikós’ hands throughout the centuries. Uhura was curious about Ieva’s language and she learned fast. In the beginning, McCoy had been asked to translate everything he could for her because Ieva said he might possibly lose his abilities if the link would ever be broken. The communications specialist wouldn’t.  
Of course, language was not the only thing the women talked about. Ieva had quite some questions regarding social and cultural norms. In many hours of “girl talk” as the captain had called it, Uhura got the feeling that there was more than the link or the other woman’s scientific interest that kept Ieva around doctor McCoy. Approaching the topic, she asked about relations and their meaning within the angelikós society. “You said there’s only a few thousand of your kind. How do you make sure not to become extinct?”  
Ieva laughed. “Leonard asked me the same thing lately. We don’t think about extinction the way you do. But, well, we also got the fortunate position of having a very dominant DNA, especially in the females. It is even more dominant than the Klingons’. Ours always wins. Depending on the species of the mother, single features are inherited from the alien partner, but they are usually lost within two or three generations. One, if the mother is of my kind. So, for example, Vulcan DNA would provide much of the phenotype, just like in commander Spock, but the child would genetically be an angelikós with pointy ears.”  
Uhura thought about what Ieava had just said, and wondered about one thing: “Klingon DNA is dominant?”  
“Quite so. Klingon plus human most possibly gives you a human with a Klingon’s forehead, their strength and temper. You do not know about such yet?”  
“We’re more like on the brink of war, I’m afraid.”  
Ieva frowned. “It will not be like this forever, I hope.”  
“How do you know about such?”  
“I learned about genetics before specializing with evolutionary biology.” She shrugged. “It is an interesting subject.”  
Uhura got back to what had her wondering for some time now: “What about love? Do angelikós love?”  
“Of course we do, just like everybody else.”  
“It’s just that you’re so… Science based even with this.”  
Ieva grinned. “Just because we love does not mean we cannot analyze it to the core. All the funny things going on when you are in love – and you cannot do a thing about it. At least, nothing derived logically. That is very interesting.” Saying this, the winged woman played with a tattoo-like band on her wrist absent-mindedly.

When Ieva was working with the medical team about two weeks, which she still always did under supervision of doctor McCoy, Uhura approached the doctor in private, asking about her. In the meantime, the alien woman had made friendly contacts to some of the crew members and appeared to be liked by everyone she met. Uhura had gotten the feeling, though, that there was something apart from friendship building between the doctor and his savior. “What do you think about Ieva?” she began. Somehow, the “grumpy old man's” features imperceptibly softened when the angelikós was around. Nevertheless, the captain either hadn't recognized it by now, although he was a lot closer to the doctor than Uhura was. Or he was too focused on himself to care, which wouldn't be of much surprise to Uhura. But well, it was not a bad change anyway.  
McCoy, not scenting any danger in the question, went straight forward: He was still fascinated by Ieva. “She is the first of her species ever to be contacted by Starfleet and she’s willing to let us study her – and vice versa. It’s fascinating, two scientists describing an unknown species: Each other.” His eyes clearly told of his enthusiasm. He was also fascinated by the lifelink between them, “although I haven’t yet found a way to break it.” He knew he was brilliant in his profession, but by now he was thinking that the link between them was not completely a medical question, if at all.  
“Do you even want to find that solution?”  
In sudden silence he stared at her in surprise. “Of course I do! It’s the riddle, the mystery of it that keeps me eager to find out more.”  
Uhura smiled gently. “Of course, I see that. But that’s not what I mean.” She let it sink in for a moment before going on: “Would you like her to leave? Because that is what she’ll probably do then.” After all, Ieva was an evolutionary scientist, and despite her talent for people, her profession was plants.  
The doctor fell silent and felt the sudden need to sit down. There was a flicker in his gaze, for the blink of an eye only, but Uhura had been looking for a sign like this. “Of course I want to find a way”, he said. “I still feel horrible about it. I’m the reason she isn’t free to study those Krol flowers.” He clearly felt guilty no matter the great opportunity of having an unknown species here. No matter Ieva’s acceptance of the situation, it rankled with him.  
“But…?”   
He looked up, forcedly distant: “I don’t know what you mean.”  
She shrugged. “Okay.”  
When Uhura left, he sighed, sitting in his chair staring against the wall, thinking. He very well knew what she meant: He had grown fond of Ieva, even more than he’d like to admit to himself, and he surely didn’t want her to leave. But forcing her into that link of lives, he just couldn’t stand also.  
“Great thing you got yourself into”, he grumbled unhappily. “How typical.”  
That night, he dreamt of leaving Starfleet to go to wherever she wanted to. Again. He woke up into a day that hadn’t even started, confused and slightly worried. Telling himself it was the link letting his mind wander, he managed to ignore the signs.

Scotty’s birthday party made it blatantly obvious how right Uhura had been: The doctor just wasn’t only scientifically interested in Ieva. Not anymore.  
He knew she had made friends with the Scot soon and although they never spoke about anything technical they must have found the same kind of humor in each other.  
Uhura gave a content smile but kindly no comment when she caught the doctor staring at Ieva talking to the birthday boy – and even Spock! – in her sunshiny friendly manner. McCoy’s face must have been an open book for everyone to see. Embarrassed he turned to leave the party on an excuse – in fact, there actually was an excuse residing in the med bay he could check on right now.   
Uhura waited for him outside. “Nobody saw”, she told him. “But I am right, am I?”  
He couldn’t answer right now but pointed in the med bay’s direction. So she came along anyway.

_The Vulcan, Spock, is a logic spot in the emotional society on the ship. Nevertheless, the differences between Vulcans and us are well known. He is interesting because he’s half human, but that is all._  
McCoy remembered this from her report, especially the first sentence, whilst walking. It kept itself in his mind all the way to the med bay. There, he checked on the patient sound asleep briefly, but soon sat down looking hardly hidden miserable. Emotional, clearly.  
Uhura locked the door so nobody could accidentally overhear. She sat down next to him.  
“It’s difficult”, he finally said.  
She just nodded and let him talk. He clearly needed to get it off to someone, and obviously the captain was not the person to share his thoughts with in this case.   
He needed a while to figure out what to say.  
“I can’t stand the thought of keeping her prisoner to her own moral decision. She lost her freedom in saving my life.” He sighed. “But I can’t seem to find a way to end this.”  
Staring into space, he sighed again, much lower. “And I don’t want her to leave.”  
When he looked up at Uhura, his gaze flickered. “What if I don’t find a way because I don’t try hard enough?”  
“I think she could – and would – tell”, Uhura replied calmly. Ieva had said that there was no way, anyway. If she didn’t know how to break that bond, how could McCoy possibly?  
They kept silent for a while. Then, Uhura asked: “Have you told her?”  
He just stared at her blankly. She could almost see his thoughts rushing through his head.  
“What could I tell her”, he said soundlessly.  
“You’ve fallen in love”, she replied with a voice so low, it was barely more than a whisper.  
The doctor didn’t say a thing. He just stared into space again for a long time. When Uhura was called to the bridge, she laid her hand onto his shoulder compassionately.   
Before the door closed behind her, she could hear him admit it again: “I don’t want her to go.” It sounded like the most lost and the saddest thing she had ever heard.

After Uhura left, he had sat in the silence of the nightly med bay, finally realizing and allowing himself to see that he had actually fallen in love with Ieva. He cursed himself. How stupid could he become? But a night of waking and fighting himself couldn’t change what was all too real: The old fool he was had fallen in love. And he couldn’t even say when.

When the party faded, the only people left were Scotty and Ieva, discussing the philosophical indications and practical problems of time travel.  
“I do not think humankind should head for time travel. Not yet. You are still children in some aspects.”  
He laughed. “Yeah, well, maybe. But it would be interesting. If we had the stuff to do it.” On her questioning eyebrows, he explained how red matter could create a black hole and thus enable time travel.   
“That is way too dangerous! And a horrible waste of matter as well!” She was literally stunned by the thought alone. “One does not need a black hole created by red matter, or a black hole at all. There are other ways to jump start.”  
“I can't think of one.”  
“There is something we call substance stones. A single one of them treated the right way can create an event horizon within an engine and thus be used for jump starts, including time travel.”  
Scotty laughed. “I'd love to see that!”  
She smiled. “Well, it's very advanced technology, and substance stones are not easily to be found. But I promise, if I ever get a substance stone, it's yours. To occupy your brilliant mind, Scotty.”  
He raised his glass. “I'll drink to that!”  
They clinked glasses, laughing. Of course, Ieva didn't tell him what “substance stones” actually were. It wasn't important anyway.

“You’re a bit dark-thinking on things, aren’t you?”  
Leonard had been brooding ever since they started working today. “I’m realistic”, he said. “Mostly.”  
She grinned. “Are you in awe at the beauty of things when you don’t think about sudden doom emerging from them?”  
“Sure I am. I just don’t like the possibility of negative surprises. And space is full of those.”  
Ieva nodded – she had learned that gesture by now – and gave a supportive smile: “So in the end, travelling through space is not _that_ much a thing for you.”  
He sighed, but she saved him from finding an answer to that: “For me neither, as you know. And I like this ship. It’s impressive, actually. I prefer solid ground, though. I like the luxury of planetary gravitation and surroundings of the same kind. But to see what I am interested in, I have to travel.”  
“Even if it's not what you wanted to see in the first place.“  
She looked up and straight into his eyes. “Even then, yes. Because every day brings new exciting sights.“ She gave a grin. “You have sad eyebrows, do you know that?“  
Confused, the frowned. “ _Sad eyebrows_ “, he repeated.  
“Maybe you are just too thoughtful today“, she mused. “Are you okay?“  
Just then, the doctor was called to the bridge.

Getting back to the med bay later, Jim's “How's your talented lifelink lady today?“ still ringing in his ears, Leonard thought of what Ieva had noted on the ship's captain:  
 _The captain, Kirk, is brilliant amongst his kind, but he is torn, aggressive, with a lot of anger. Without his crew, the dynamics between them, especially his first officer, and the very will to suppress or at least ignore (if not overcome) the inherent anger, he would not be half as good a captain to a ship than he is. Control is what he learns from Spock, advise he, sometimes, seems to take from his friend McCoy, still there is a lot of destructive and possibly self-destructive behavior lying within. I wonder where it comes from.  
Is it an aspect of the human characteristics in general or is it specific to certain human beings?_  
She had characterized them, the captain and the doctor, as “two very different types of character. But you became friends, and that is great.”  
She also had showed him her thoughts on human aggressiveness, because that was something she struggled to understand:   
_It seems to be inherent to the human race. Bound by modern day logic, but still there: The impulse to end a conflict by violence. Nevertheless, humankind is able to cooperate, if they leave their supposedly inherent affinity to conflict aside._  
Neither of the entries he recalled gave him the bliss of chasing away the thoughts Uhura had made him aware of.


	5. V

**Chapter V**

 

“Even with my eyesight you won’t be able to look _into_ my skull”, Ieva said and thus pulled the doctor out of his thoughts quite roughly. Tonight the med bay was empty, so they had been going through stuff. She found it interesting, too, but not as much as seeing him work. He was an exceedingly talented doctor. In fact, she would not have let him examine her the way she had, hadn’t he been. She turned from the hypos she had been checking to face him.  
“I’m sorry”, he mumbled, looking like a deer in the headlights. Caught, he felt. Thinking about his feelings for her, and about her, he had been. That he had been staring at her, he hadn’t recognized.  
Ieva tilted her head, another habit she had learned being amongst humans for so long. “What is it?” she asked. They had settled with first names, but he was extraordinarily relieved she hadn’t spoken it right now.  
Leonard sighed. “I will not find a way”, he admitted. He knew he was a brilliant doctor, but this link was way out of his reach – and everybody else’s.  
She nodded. There was no need to tell him “I told you so”. But there was something else about him. That something had been almost perceptible for quite some time now, but it was very much _there_ right now. Her eyes’ gold got brighter as she looked at him, waiting.  
“And I don’t want you to go”, he added, speaking hastily and low and with a face as if he wanted to flee into _anywhere_ right now. He probably had _sad eyebrows_ right now.  
Her nictitating membranes blinked a few times as she was processing the words’ meaning. There was only one thing to be read between the lines here, and she was glad about it.  
Ieva got up very slowly and took a step towards him. “You want me to stay”, she said and she knew that was all he meant by the look on his face: He wanted her to stay, for emotional reasons.  
“I do.” His heart pounded hard and fast and his breath was close to hyperventilation. He couldn’t read anything in her features, so he couldn’t see her relief in hearing his words. And then another fear struck him: What if she didn’t only _not_ feel anything for him, but didn’t understand the concept of love _at all_? They had talked about reproductional relationships, but not about emotional things ever (and Kirk’s invidious joke on marriage would have kept him from bringing up the topic anyway).  
He had her hand on his cheek before he could faint from the pure stress of the situation. The touch was light, careful. Her eyes rested on his, making him feel like losing the ground under his feet. Then he realized what she really did: The touch shared her physical condition with him more effectively than their link did, calming down his heartbeat to a less alarming rate. He could only recognize this, but not move away, even if he had wanted to. And then he felt something else radiating from her touch: There was a feeling of _relief_ in it. Her gaze had caught his completely.  
“You’re in love”, she said, and it was neither question nor detection, but a whisper.  
Within the golden glow of her eyes, he lost all sense of reality and time. The moment before she kissed him felt eternal – as did the kiss, gentle and deep and deadly to any formed or yet-to-be-formed thought.   
Then the alarm went off.

The following hours were crazy with work. Every hand was needed, and sometimes it felt like everything might just blow. It became a full day of not talking about anything, and just falling asleep right when things were back to normal. Everyone was either busy or completely jaded, but the medical team managed to handle the situation. Unfortunately, there was one person who could not be saved.   
When Ieva saw a dead person for the first time, she was confused. She had never seen anything like it before, and took the first chance to ask Leonard about it.  
“That woman – she is dead?”  
He stared her in tired disbelief. “Yes. Have you never seen a dead person before?”  
“Actually, no. Not like this.”  
“Oh.” After a moment of silence, he added: “Like this?”  
“When we die, our body doeas not just … stay like this.”  
His exhaustion left him, curiosity replaced it. “What happens to your body?”  
“It transforms. The being's substance gathers in the spine, which then forms so-called substance stones.”  
“Substance stones?” he asked.  
“Yes. Between eight and fourteen, depending on a lot of variables. For example, my body will form eleven or twelve of them, I think.”  
“So you don't have a body to bury.”  
“No. That sounds … strange. Is it like that with all human beings?”  
“It's like that with every creature I know.”  
Her golden eyes were wide with surprise.  
“What do the stones do? Or, what do you do with the stones?”  
She thought about it. “There are a lot of potential uses for them. They clear organic substances, filter light, create energy of different kinds, … I did not know that other life forms keep their physical form after death.”  
For a moment, they both went silent. Then the doctor was called to the bridge. Ieva stayed where she was, thinking. Then she took out her book to do some research on the matter. Death had never been a subject of hers.  
When later the body was taken away, Leonard heard Ieva say “Travel safely.”, and asked her about it.  
“It is how we say goodbye”, she said. Since her kind was a travelling species - “always have been” - that was their greeting to others, similar to the Vulcans' greeting.


	6. VI

**Chapter VI**

 

When they finally found a moment to themselves in the empty again med bay, he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer: “I’m afraid I love you.” He had realized that he was past a crush and past being in love. He was not past being afraid of it, though.  
Ieva crossed the room slowly, not letting her eyes off him. “Afraid? Well, that’s something to begin with.” Casually locking the door, she came over to him, and set her hands onto his neck like before.  
After what felt like an eternity of falling into her eyes, they kissed, gentle and softly. This time, nothing interrupted. When she broke the kiss, she didn’t shy away from his face, and neither did he.   
Then, in an onset of passion and desperation, he pulled her in again, his hands resting on her waist, reaching around her small body. She twitched and stopped his incoming kiss, but laid her hands around his neck. “Gentle on the wings”, she said and he felt the tails move under his fingers, getting drawn up into her shoulders slowly. “Grab underneath them.” Then he felt them leave his touch, brushing the back of his hands slightly.   
“I am not afraid to love you, too.” She pulled him in in an encouraging way, allowing the kiss she had interrupted. He grabbed her by the waist passionately, deepening the kiss. On the very rim of his consciousness he felt her wings unfold and kind of wrap around the two of them like a curtain. It was a fleeting sensation only, for having her this close shut down any higher level thought processes.

When he woke, he laid on his bed battered and dizzy, and completely naked. Lifting his head, he felt a sting in his neck. Feeling for it, he remembered last night.  
 _They had left the med bay soon to catch more privacy. On their way to his quarters she warned him he might be not too fit by the next day if they were to go on with what they had begun. But there was no stopping them anyway: Longing had burned brightly through their every kiss and touch and called to be fed.  
Her skin had been cool under his touch, but ever so soft and tempting; he could not have stopped himself unforced, and her tongue had stolen away every last bit of restraint that might have been left. Becoming one came with the tips of her wings breaking skin in his neck, causing nothing but an even bigger rush of hormones through his body. And how she wrecked him!_  
Every single muscle tingled achingly that morning. A blissful ache it was, he realized, coming to his senses slowly. She sat there, in front of his bed, with a glass of water in her hands.  
“Sorry for that”, she said, gesturing to his hand rubbing his neck absentmindedly.  
Thankfully he took the glass and, stretching his wrecked body, brought himself into a sitting position.  
“What happened?” he asked, and to her content grin added “…here.”  
“It is becoming one in my species. The nerves at the tips lock with the cerebellum. I did not know happens inter-species as well.” Then her face got worried. “Are you okay?”  
He hurried to say: “Very.” For a long moment he just looked at her, lost in her eyes and the still not fully faded afterglow. The shared physical experience had made sex into something he had ever experienced before – or even imagined possible. _Becoming one_ , he thought. _Indeed._  
She took his hand, gently, and brought his palm to her lips. “Me, too.” Then she gave a pull. “We should check you for damages, or potential damages.”  
He laughed.  
Ieva bent to place a kiss on his forehead. “I mean it”, she said. “I do not know enough about human brain functions to not worry.”  
In his state of only slowly fading dizziness he didn’t protest but also would not have cared too much if there was any damage. It couldn’t be so bad, could it? He felt fantastic in a way he couldn’t even remember to have ever felt before. Light and happy and a little tipsy – okay, that _should_ be checked upon. 

“Looks pretty normal”, he finally said. Her wings hadn’t pricked his cerebellum, but they had planted a hit into his nervous system some way – it had even heightened his hormone level and thus his experience of lust. What it didn’t do was linking their sensory perception, but they had their lifelink that did it anyway.  
“Your oxytocin levels are through the roof.” She gave him the readings.  
He smiled. “Jep, definitely”, taking her into a hug. 

Ieva's approach to new things – and there were lots of them to her – fascinated Leonard again and again. One day she suggested to give a Tribble to a boy with a broken arm.  
“Their purring has a relaxing influence on the autonomic nervous system and the boy would be distracted.”  
She liked those little fur balls and pointed out that under the right circumstances having a Tribble around might decrease the need for narcotics, at least in light cases.  
It worked on the boy.

“Why me?” Leonard asked her one day after a long and exhausting shift. He looked at her in disbelief, realizing how lucky he was.   
“That is a strange question”, she said. They had chosen to eat together at his quarters. “And one that cannot be answered.” Ieva looked up at him, gaze lingering on his eyes alone. “It is that darkness within you that is asking this, right? Tell me about it, if you can. Where it is rooted.” She took his hand and lifted it up to her lips for the slightest kiss. He just watched her.  
“We are here”, she said in a low voice. “It is us, it is our time. That is every reason possible.”  
He sighed, but didn’t speak. She was right about the darkness: Gloomy, grumpy, disenchanted – maybe he had become cynical through the years. _Grumpy old man._  
“Past times are gone, future days are not here yet.” She let go of his hand and just sat there, smiling lovingly. “You, because it is _you_. To the full extent, all you.”  
Ieva let him decide for the next touch, and he did. He leaned in to kiss her. His throat felt dry, and his eyes tickled from emotion. Leonard’s kiss tonight was desperation and relief, and then relief alone, and love, and passion, and – happiness.

That night, Ieva told him she had learned to have been in love even before they had her wings examined. Letting him touch her back down the wings’ roots had been a very difficult situation for her – and when she told him, Leonard had to admit the awkwardness of that situation himself. She would not have had him do it without an exceptional feeling of trust. The trust of a lover.


	7. VII

**Chapter VII**

 

He lost her unexpectedly and with a deep feeling of guilt only after they had become lovers officially.  
The crew was on shore leave for a few hours on a base located on a moon. There were supplies to be stocked and even a few repairs to be taken care of, so everybody else could go and explore the base.

When they set foot on the base, the captain felt the urge to share his knowledge of inter-species couples, saying: “You know, a relationship with an alien can be quite difficult.”  
Spock, standing nearby, just lifted an eyebrow.  
“Is that so?” the doctor asked as if Jim had told him something amazingly unknown.  
Ieva gave a grin: “You know, for me _you_ are the alien.” She linked her fingers with Leonard’s, who happily took her into a hug.  
Spock smirked, and caused Kirk to wonder: “Are you laughing, Spock?”  
“I would not say so”, the Vulcan replied.  
“I’m sure you’re grinning.”  
In leaving the platform, Ieva got next to the commander, saying “I like your fine sense of humor. It’s outstanding and assumedly unique.”  
The Vulcan looked at her and gave a nod. “Assumedly it might be.” Uhura smirked and they wandered off.

The place was beautiful and very busy: There were construction sites all over it, but also lots of people on the streets, busy about their lives. Leonard and Ieva just went for a stroll enjoying real gravity and natural air.

Soon they bumped into another angelikós by chance. The man had called out for Ieva from across the street and when they met, they took the time for a little chat. The man, Pirrtho, told Ieva about the latest news on her research: A pupil of hers named Arco-Li had taken over Ieva’s work on Varyc Nuuf. She seemed to be quite content with the choice. Then Pirrtho smiled at Leonard, saying “And this must be the human you are linked to.”   
Leonard had needed a while to adjust to the language he had never heard before and was happy about Pirrtho switching to English now. Just like Ieva, the other angelikós didn’t use a translator. And like Ieva’s, his pronunciation seemed old-fashioned, but it was more than enough to understand each other. Leonard nodded on Pirrtho’s assumption and felt loved deeply when she added: “Meanwhile it has become a love relationship also.”  
“Interesting. And very uncommon”, Pirrtho remarked. “But so is linking itself. “Congratulations.” He smiled.  
“I wonder, have you come here alone?” Ieva asked.  
“No, you are right, of course not. Hae-rhee”, he called out. “Come meet Ieva and Leonard.”  
What first looked like a swirl of hot air actually had a small human form – and distinctively pointy ears. The girl, as soon as she said “Hello”, looked like a miniature version of Ieva, but at the same time she had a Vulcan’s ears and her skin seemed to shimmer in the light.  
Ieva grinned. “Hae-rhee. I see you have your mother’s ears.”  
“And her eyes. And I have grandfather’s chameleon skin.” She moved slightly to show off the effect.  
Pirrtho grinned at Leonard’s obvious fascination. “I did not inherit it, because mother’s DNA was too dominant. But here we see that it is still lurking in my genome.”  
The girl looked from Ieva to Leonard and back again. “You are life-linked, I have read about it. What does it mean?”  
Ieva gave a gentle smile. “That you will understand the day you choose your name.”  
Hae-rhee was okay with that and soon went back to whatever she had been doing before. Pirrtho watched her vanish. “She is into your research a lot”, he said. “We will have to pay Varyc Nuuf a visit some day, I think.”

When they parted ways, Ieva told Leonard everything he might be asking: “Pirrtho is a cultural scientist. His special interest is small social groups with high inner diversity. His daughter is half Vulcan. I guess, her mother is on New Vulcan these days.”  
“You said she will choose her name, but the both of you called her by some.”  
“That is one nickname all kids have: Hae-rhee is something alike _beloved child_ in your language.”  
“Oh.” He thought about it. “So you really don’t have a name before you choose it yourself.”  
“That’s right.”  
“How do you choose it? They seem very different.”  
“Well... I am not sure if I can explain it to you. It is a decision at the end of a very long process. Maybe, when we get back to the ship, or find a cozy place down here, I can explain it with how I decided.”  
“Sure”, he said, looking around them.  
“There has been a café in the second quarter that I liked”, she suddenly said, pointing the direction. “If you like...?”  
“You've been here before?” He was baffled. For Starfleet, the place was far-off, and now he was just about to learn that for the angelikós, it was “quite en route”, as she put it. “Like a taxi station, for travelling space.”  
“So that's why you weren't even surprised meeting Pirrtho here!”  
“Affirmative.” She grinned and dragged him along with her, looking for the café. “We love places like this: Crowded with multiple lifeforms, but peaceful, no weapons allowed. They feel like home, kind of.”  
Leonard knew the angelikós despised all kind of physical conflict, or conflict at all – and this base had a very strict 'no weapons' policy going on for years. He followed her lead around a few corners, asking: “What did Pirrtho mean, _uncommon_?”  
She stopped and took her time to look at him closely. “Lifelinks are a rarity, and usually they lead to a close friendship for life. Very close, yes, naturally, emerging from the mutual responsibility. But love? I know no record of love emerging from a lifelink.”  
They just stood there for a moment, looking at each other, smiling happily.  
“How rare are they, anyway?” He hadn't asked that until today. Given the knowledge that there were only a few thousand angelikós, and Ieva's handling the situation, he had thought it was something normal to her kind. Common, in a way. It wasn't.  
“Statistically... One in twenty thousand.”  
“But there are only a few thousand of your kind, you said.”  
She grinned and gave him a swift kiss to the cheek. “That is why it is considered rare.” 

The doctor only remembered isolated sequenzes and impressions of what had happened, afterwards. A loud cracking noise that grew into a cascade fast. The change of light, his sight becoming suddenly blurred – by dust, he later learned.  
An accident at one of the construction sides had led to a chain reaction and everything at that side breakingdown, burying half the street as well. Including them.  
He had heard her surprised call before he lost his consciousness, and the echo of a pain that was his own as well as the loss of something.  
In his state between blackout and waking, he needed forever to comprehend that the lifelink had begun to fade.

That part of her back where the root of her wings was joined with the spine got hurt. It set off a process that couldn’t be stopped: Ieva was dying from the moment she was hit, but it took its time, and with other injured crew members and base visitors she was brought aboard the Enterprise. Right when she arrived she had made sure that every medical personnel took care of everybody else. “I beyond off help”, she said. And since Leonard wasn’t injured life-threatening, the two of them ended up bed by bed in a non-busy corner of the med bay.

He woke to a sharp pain in his hip and left leg, gasping for air as if he’d been holding his breath. The familiar sight of the Enterprise’s med bay helped him focus. Then the few shattered memories came crushing in, forcing him up onto his elbows, turning his head to find her.  
Ignoring the pain, he practically jumped from the bed and to her side. She was awake, looking pale, but calm as always. Her readings, though, alarmed him to the core: Everything was dropping.  
“Ieva”, he said worryingly.  
She smiled her gentle smile. “You shouldn’t stand on that leg”, and patted onto the bed to make him sit.  
“What is that”, he asked soundlessly after a moment. They both knew he knew.  
“I got hit in the _root_. Bad luck.”  
He stared, processing, unwilling to believe. “What can I do?” he asked, voice hollow. “There must be something…-“  
“I’m sorry, love. There’s nothing you can do.”  
He stared at his hands and felt the numbness that must be spreading all over her body right now. She was dying.  
“Anything”, he mumbled.  
She interlaced their fingers. It cost her a lot effort. “I am already fading. But I can give you my book. Everything you might need to know is accessible, try ‘X physicals, V root’. But believe me when I say there is nothing to be done, not even by your wonderful, magic hands.”  
He couldn’t say a thing more, just look at her, holding her hands in his. He felt her spreading numbness more than his own pain. It faded until it became no more than background sounds, and although he knew what would happen next, as she had told him before, he was nowhere near ready to see it: Ieva’s body seemed to lose materiality. With her death, the material of her body was dragged to the spine. It was a bit like matter in space forming white dwarfs. In the end, the spine ‘broke’ apart into eleven ‘substance stones’ as she had called it before. They were diamond-like crystals, unimposing and cold. They were left in front of him and he grabbed them in a motion of desperation. Ieva was gone, literally.  
He stared into space for a heartbeat longer, unable to process, even less able to accept the facts. Then he broke down, unconscious, due to the final loss of the link.

It was Spock who took care of lying him onto the bed properly. The doctor was in a state of half waking and half unconscious when the Vulcan did so.   
His mind was still locked in the moments of her passing away. Ieva had been there out of the blue. They had become linked by fate, lovers by feel. But that little time they had had!

It took him time to recover from the physical breakdown due to the lifelink disappearing. Apart from everything else, he had grown used to the enhanced physical strength which was gone now in the blink of an eye.  
But it took much more time to adjust to his loss.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter VIII**

 

When he was done with recovery, including getting used to his new old self, but still suffering from the loss of her, Jim suggested him to take a leave for a while.  
Bones shook his head in denial. “I need something to keep myself occupied. Please.”  
His state reminded Jim of when they first met, but it was different now in one important detail: Back then the doc had been devastated in a way, dealing with divorce and everything the grumpy, pessimistic, sometimes cynical way. _Now_ the man was broken by loss, wrecked to the very core. There was no easy way to deal with that, not right now. And probably not in a long time. Bones had been damn _happy_ with Ieva. Jim had made fun of his friend falling for the woman who had saved his life, but he had also been a little jealous about it, too. What the two of them had had, was unique even in terms of life-bonds, Jim had learned after her death. Now Bones looked as if he had been torn to pieces. His commitment to his job maybe was the only thing keeping him from complete breakdown.  
“Do you even sleep?” he finally asked.  
“Not much.”  
“Care for a drink?”  
“No… Thanks. I’ll be okay.” Bones sighed at Jim’s doubtful glance. “Really.”  
Jim saw that there was not much he could do there. He had hoped to get the man to talk, to do some healing or at least be there for him. Obviously, Bones needed time to himself first.

After Jim was gone, Leonard finally took Ieva’s book. A weak smile appeared on his lips, remembering. What he had thought to be a part of her skin had been some kind of biological bracelet, and the key to her book. Pressing the buttons worked only with the bracelet as some kind of adapter between humanoid and device. She had given it to him, had let it slip from her skin to his, back in the med bay, when she told him he could use the book to see there was nothing he could do. Now he looked at the nearly invisible line wrapping around his wrist. The bracelet felt warm, like the echo of a touch.  
He breathed deeply and pressed the buttons like he had seen her do it countless times.  
The pages were empty and it felt strange staring at them. Then he took the pen and tapped at the bottom of the page. A hum vibrated through his hand holding the book, then some characters became visible. He wrote what she had told him: ‘X physicals, V root’.  
Half an hour later he knew that there truly was nothing anybody could have done. When he closed the file, a file was there he hadn’t seen before. It was tagged ‘Leonard’, in English.

It was a video she had recorded somewhat about a week before her death. With a painful sting through his chest, he watched it.  
“Hello love. I’m afraid I will no longer live amongst you when you see this, but I am happy that I will have managed to give you access to this.” She smiled, gently. He missed that smile.  
“Well now. I do not know what to say that you do not know already. I love you, and I am very glad to have met you back at Varyc Nuuf. Everything we experience is wonderful and I am truly happy. So will you please stop feeling bad about how we met? I thank you, from the heart, for everything since the swamp.” She paused.   
“I have a few requests I hope you may fulfill. This book, keep it if you wish. As long as the bracelet links you to my DNA, it gives you access to all known medical data on my species, and everything we know about humans. That is all I can give on that behalf, but I am certain you understand.”   
She played with her bracelet absent-mindedly. “Have you kept the substance stones? They can be quite useful. There is a whole tree of files on substance stones alone. You have access to the very most of it via this book. Most importantly, the stones can clear body liquids off things that do not belong in there, so you might want to keep them for medical purpose. I would nevertheless ask you to give one of them to Scotty, in case he needs a jump start one day. We talked about the stones’ use in engine matters some time ago and I would like him to rack his brains over that riddle.” A cheeky smirk appeared in her eyes.   
“And the most wonderful thing they can do I do not know if Starfleet will allow you to try, for it’s nothing scientifically known by your kind by now, and even we were not able to analyze its ways yet: If you set one of the stones off into a star of a mass between Varyc Nuuf’s sun and 150 per cent of it, for a blink of an eye the star will emerge a light that goes straight to the bones and makes every cell vibrate with a certain melody. It does not make a sound, but it is the sound, the light is a kind of music. It does no harm to anything alive, and it does not have an impact on any kind of devices. But it does stop everything for a moment, it brings everything to a halt. Most creatures experiencing this feel a deep peace within then and become clear of things. It is a philosophical experience of a subdimensional kind and a wonder in itself. The light covers a range like that of Varyc Nuuf’s system’s three inner planets and as I said, it fades very soon. It is harmless, but wonderful. …well, and it should be only one stone and the size of a star as I said. Otherwise, the range would be much higher and that could lead to confusion.” She laughed. “It is truly beautiful”, she added.  
For a moment, she just looked into the camera, thinking. “That is all I can say, I am afraid. I am very happy, Leonard, and I really love you. Thank you for all and everything. Travel safely, love.”  
He put the book down. “Travel safely”, he whispered, tears on his face.

He lost the ability to understand Ieva's language fast since the link was gone, so he asked Uhura to help transferring the data he had access to into Starfleet’s database; then he sent a message via the book, telling her supervisors of Ieva’s death.  
The answer came soon: He was thanked and informed that if he wished to close the book forever, he could do so by wrapping the bracelet around it.  
When he did, it emerges some kind of heat that didn't burn, and then the book turned into a substance stone itself.

 

\- The End -


End file.
